ever wonder why you can get a usb cable for $0.99 all the way from china? china has no answer for this one since it's a one-way street. this is how you hit them where it hurts!

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Trump Opens New Front in His Battle With China: International Shipping

WASHINGTON — President Trump plans to withdraw from a 144-year-old postal treaty that has allowed Chinese companies to ship small packages to the United States at a steeply discounted rate, undercutting American competitors and flooding the market with cheap consumer goods.

The withdrawal, announced by the White House on Wednesday, is part of a concerted push by Mr. Trump to counter China’s dominance and punish it for what the administration says is a pattern of unfair trade practices. The White House, in a statement, said “sufficient progress has not been made on reforming terms” of the postal treaty and that it would begin the withdrawal process while seeking to “negotiate bilateral and multilateral agreements that resolve the problems.”

The Universal Postal Union treaty, first drafted in 1874, sets fees that national postal services charge to deliver mail and small parcels to countries around the world. Since 1969, poor and developing countries — including China — have been assessed lower rates than wealthier countries in Europe and North America.

While the lower rates were intended to foster development in Asia and Africa, Chinese companies now make up about 60 percent of packages shipped into the country, taking advantage of the lower rates to ship clothing, household gadgets and consumer electronics. Many websites now offer free shipping from China, in part because of the cheap postal rates, administration officials say.

Trump trade war: U.S. stock market is faring better than China's since dispute beganChina has more to lose Chinese exports to the U.S., measured in dollars, outnumber incoming American goods to China by a 3 to 1 margin. Remember, nearly 70 percent of the U.S. economy is driven by domestic spending by consumers. China, which is running a $280 billion trade surplus with the U.S, according to data from financial firm Stifel, can't risk losing too much of its American business, Wall Street pros say.

"The U.S. is a customer of size with buying power that is hard to replace," says John Stoltzfus, chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer Asset Management.

And although tariffs could cause prices for consumer products ranging from cars to washing machines to rise, "the U.S. does not need China as much as China needs the U.S.," says Barry Bannister, head of institutional equity strategy at Stifel.

Trump trade war: U.S. stock market is faring better than China's since dispute beganChina has more to lose Chinese exports to the U.S., measured in dollars, outnumber incoming American goods to China by a 3 to 1 margin. Remember, nearly 70 percent of the U.S. economy is driven by domestic spending by consumers. China, which is running a $280 billion trade surplus with the U.S, according to data from financial firm Stifel, can't risk losing too much of its American business, Wall Street pros say.

"The U.S. is a customer of size with buying power that is hard to replace," says John Stoltzfus, chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer Asset Management.

And although tariffs could cause prices for consumer products ranging from cars to washing machines to rise, "the U.S. does not need China as much as China needs the U.S.," says Barry Bannister, head of institutional equity strategy at Stifel.

China stocks plunge amid heavy selling in the energy sector and growing worries about the economy

Chinese stocks fell sharply on Thursday as heavy selling in the energy sector and worries about the levels of borrowing in the stock market added to broader concerns over growth and the global sell-off in equities.The Shanghai Composite index closed down 2.9 percent at 2,486.42, after hitting its lowest point since November 2014 on Thursday morning.

US economy showing momentum as leading indicators rise for 12th straight month in September

September marked the 12th straight month of gains for The Conference Board’s index, which takes into account building permits, the ISM index of new orders and stock prices.“The US LEI improved further in September, suggesting the US business cycle remains on a strong growth trajectory heading into 2019,” says Ataman Ozyildirim, director and global chair at The Conference Board. Ozyildirim also notes economic growth could top 3.5 percent in the second half of this year, but “unless the momentum in housing, orders and stock prices accelerates, that pace is unlikely to be sustained in 2019.”

This is another Trump win but it really is a win for everyone but Russia.

In Win for Trump, Merkel Changes Course on U.S. Gas ImportsChancellor calls her decision to open Germany up to U.S. liquefied natural gas a ‘strategic’ move

BERLIN—Chancellor Angela Merkel has offered government support to efforts to open up Germany to U.S. gas, a key concession to President Trump as he tries to loosen Russia’s grip on Europe’s largest energy market.

Over breakfast this month, the chancellor told a small group of lawmakers her government had decided to co-finance the construction of a €500 million ($576 million) liquefied natural gas shipping terminal in northern Germany, according to people familiar with the meeting, giving a crucial nudge to a project that had failed to get off the ground for years in a country that gets most of its gas cheaply from Russia.

Mr. Trump has intensively lobbied Europe to buy significant amounts of LNG as part of his campaign to rewrite the terms of trade relations. German and U.S. officials said Berlin hoped embracing U.S. gas might help solve a protracted trade dispute and possibly even defuse threats by Washington to sanction Nord Stream 2, an unbuilt German-Russian gas pipeline that would double Russia’s existing gas export capacity to Germany.

Trade talks between China and the United States concluded this week with every indication that a deal can be had. Success is still far from a foregone conclusion, and the thorny international issues of North Korea, Taiwan and the South China Sea could hinder a final arrangement. But it looks as if one of President Trump’s most roundly criticized moves, the implementation of tariffs on many Chinese goods, could prove a master stroke.

Trump ran to reverse those trends. The elites in both parties heard his talk and immediately labeled him a protectionist. I guess those are fighting words on college campuses and in corporate boardrooms, but in places such as Newton, Iowa, they were a compliment. That’s because people saw what Trump would be trying to protect: their jobs, their wages and their towns.

That’s all the tariffs were ever meant to do — serve as the stick that would push China to the bargaining table. Trump had to be willing to follow through if that tactic failed, and for the better part of a year he held firm. But in Argentina last month, the Chinese, faced with data showing that their economy was slowing down as ours roared ahead, asked for a truce. Trump accepted, and that’s where we stand.

We do not yet know how the new game will end. Trump may not get the deal we need, or he might blunder and overpay in a quest to sign anything he can call a success. But for now, all the signs look good. More importantly, the signs give people hope that leaders can be responsive to their citizens and that elections can produce change. That hope alone is worth the gamble he has taken.

Trade talks between China and the United States concluded this week with every indication that a deal can be had. Success is still far from a foregone conclusion, and the thorny international issues of North Korea, Taiwan and the South China Sea could hinder a final arrangement. But it looks as if one of President Trump’s most roundly criticized moves, the implementation of tariffs on many Chinese goods, could prove a master stroke.

Trump ran to reverse those trends. The elites in both parties heard his talk and immediately labeled him a protectionist. I guess those are fighting words on college campuses and in corporate boardrooms, but in places such as Newton, Iowa, they were a compliment. That’s because people saw what Trump would be trying to protect: their jobs, their wages and their towns.

That’s all the tariffs were ever meant to do — serve as the stick that would push China to the bargaining table. Trump had to be willing to follow through if that tactic failed, and for the better part of a year he held firm. But in Argentina last month, the Chinese, faced with data showing that their economy was slowing down as ours roared ahead, asked for a truce. Trump accepted, and that’s where we stand.

We do not yet know how the new game will end. Trump may not get the deal we need, or he might blunder and overpay in a quest to sign anything he can call a success. But for now, all the signs look good. More importantly, the signs give people hope that leaders can be responsive to their citizens and that elections can produce change. That hope alone is worth the gamble he has taken.

Unlike the GOP...most people don't deal in group think. It's an opinion piece by the guy with this bio:

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He is the author of The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism and The Four Faces of the Republican Party, co-authored with Dante Scala. Mr. Olsen is also an editor at UnHerd.com, where he writes about populism and politics around the world, and he is a regular contributor to American Greatness, City Journal, and World Magazine.

Shoot the messenger, his points are valid. As are these. China's economy is getting crushed and they want a way out. We will win this in the end.

Trump will win the China trade war

There is a lot of truth to the saying that if we cannot trade with China, we sneeze. If China cannot trade with us, they catch pneumonia. Forget the spin talk that China can substitute its export market to the United States by raising its sales to Europe and other Asia markets. It is a myth. China wholly depends on the $10 trillion American consumer market to maintain its growth rates of the last two decades. Leaders in Beijing know this, and that is why they are under intense pressure to get a deal and to make the tariffs go away. The consequences of no trade deal may be mutually assured destruction, but most of the destruction will happen to them.

Second, the Chinese economy is getting crushed by the just preliminary round of 10 percent tariffs that are leaving Chinese warehouses, factories, and docks stacked to the ceilings with unsold goods. According to the South China Morning Post, “Industrial production grew 5.4 percent in November compared to the previous year, well below the 5.9 percent gain in October and expectation for a like sized 5.9 percent rise this month, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey. The November growth rate was the lowest in 10 years, matching the 5.4 percent gain in November 2008.” Chinese consumer spending will do nothing to bail out the economy because those numbers were even worse. Retail sales are now growing at the slowest pace since 2004. By the way, we know the actual, not the reported, numbers are much worse because China, much like the old Soviet Union, is notorious for lying about economic statistics.

Even more catastrophically worrisome is the Chinese stock market hit from the Trump administration tariffs. The Chinese stock market was already down some 20 percent this year and that was before the big sell off last week. The American stock market is comparatively down around 3 percent to 4 percent for the year. Imagine what happens to China if the tariffs are ratcheted up to 25 percent in the spring of next year. China would plunge into its most gut wrenching recession since the days of Mao Zedong. Can Xi Jinping politically survive the economic unrest that will send the Chinese marching into the streets with pitchforks in protests that could make the recent Paris riots look like a picnic? I would not bet on it.